Page 7 of Catch Me

What is this clown talking about? Liked me for ages? I’m not even convinced she liked me when my tongue was in her mouth. She seemed tense around me before we kissed and then she was pink with embarrassment afterwards, begging me not to tell anyone about it. And let’s be honest, why wouldn’t she be embarrassed? She could do much better than me and I'm sure she knows it. I could easily picture her with some clean skinned, blonde haired football player or something, the kind that has an earring and who’s family owns a holiday home in the Bahamas. Not a fuck up like me who comes from a single parent family of 6 kids, Dad in prison, Mum living in a three bed flat in Camden Town with barely enough money to scrape together to cover the sky high rent prices.

I pull my eyebrows together and hold up a finger to Lewis. “Ok, we’re going to come back to that last comment about her liking me for ages. But before that, I have to tell you, it wasn’t her who made the move, it was me who kissedher.” I run a hand down my face, my stumble rough like Velcro against my fingertips. “To be honest I didn’t give her much of a chance to even stop me before I was pulling her against me and sucking her lips into my mouth.”

“Interesting…” Lewis ponders, quizzical expression etched onto his face. “I can’t say I ever sawthatcoming, to be honest I don’t think I’ve ever seen you even look at her before.”

That’s the thing though, I don’t feel like I’ve ever looked at Lois before either. If I had I would have been all over her as soon as Sean turned his head. I guess I do feel a little lighter now I’ve told someone about what happened last night, but the urge to kiss Lois again isn’t wavering like I hoped it would. I know she’ll be at the party next weekend, but can I wait a whole seven days to smash my lips against her’s again? My trousers are instantly tighter just thinking about it.

I drop my head back against the couch with a sigh and scrunch my eyes tight shut for a beat. I’m trying to rid the aching pain from between my legs when I imagine all the things I might be able to do to Lois Taylor next weekend. A solid object landing in my lap pulls me back to the real world and when I look down I spot my Xbox controller.

“Fancy a game before Sean and Callie get back? You know he’ll be onto us straight away about the noise and how the baby needs a ‘calm and tranquil environment.’” Lewis air quotes, stifling a laugh by clamping his lips together. It’s true, Sean has been almost unbearable for Callie’s entire pregnancy and we all know that he’s going to hoist his irritability up by about twenty notches now Lily is here. They’re going to be living in this house with us so we have to be on our best behaviour, unfortunatelySean has us all by the short and curlies and he knows it. Our hockey careers rest on his shoulders, and friends or not, we all know he won’t hesitate to drop us from the team if we so much as make the floorboards creek too loudly and wake up his precious little ball of joy.

“Sure,” I huff, sitting up a little straighter whilst Lewis sets up a new game. “Wait, why did you press three player?”

“Ky’s coming to play in a minute, I just texted him to come down.”

“No fucking way!” I jump to my feet and the controller clatters to the ground. “I’m not playing with Ky, we lose every time.”

Lewis barks a hearty laugh that rumbles deep in his chest. “Oh come on, he’s not that bad.”

“Not that bad? We lose this game every single time without fail when Davis joins and I'm god damn sick of it.”

“Relax, it’s not that serious.” Lew laughs again, but this time there’s a heavy undertone of arrogance that I'm not a fan of. This game may not be serious to Lewis Richards but it is to me, it's my favourite method of escape — besides from sex of course. When my brain is cluttered with overwhelming thoughts about my dad or my fucked up childhood and all the things I’ve missed out on in life, I like to lose myself in the game. Any game will do the job, but COD is definitely my favourite. The laser focus mixed with the mindless violence is therapeutic in a messed up way I guess.

“It’s serious to me Richards and Kyle will fuck us up. He’ll be too busy daydreaming about Molly’s tits or something to concentrate on the task at hand.” I groan, dropping back down to the sofa with a heavy sigh. The next thing I feel is a slap around the back of my head that practically echos around the living room it’s so loud.

“Ow!” I spin around to face whoever just assaulted the back of my skull, to see Kyle’s apathetic face staring back at me. “What the fuck was that for Davis?”

“Get my girlfriend’s tits out of your head right now before I spin you across the room.” He grunts, a finger prodding through the air towards me. My face cracks into a shit eating grin without my permission and I watch Kyle try desperately to swallow a smile of his own. He puts up with my bad attitude and idiocy all the time, so for now I’ll reward him by doing as I'm told and getting Molly’s tits out of my head. But not before I poke the bear one more time first.

“She has got a killer pair of tits though, I'm sure we can all agree, you’re a lucky guy.” I smirk, eyebrows waggling as Kyle’s face flushes the same colour as an overripe tomato. It’s when the steam starts puffing out of his ears that I hold my hands up in surrender and mouth a muted, ‘sorry,’ in his direction. His skin quickly turns back to it’s normal colour and he picks up a controller, just as Lewis gets the game going.

Kyle hates the fact I fucked Molly Crawford before him. But the truth is neither of us particularly wanted each other, it was kind of just a right place, right time kind of situation. Molly is hot as balls don’t get me wrong and if she asked for another ride on my cock I wouldn’t turn her down. But the two of us were just drunk as shit one night after a party and we happened to be alone in a room together. The alcohol goggles were firmly strapped to both of our heads and I think when we woke up next to each other in the morning, we both realised that maybe we weren’t as attracted to each other as we thought we were the night before. Like I said, Molly Crawford is a fucking rocket, she has long, slender legs that almost reach her armpits. Plus, her ass is one of the best I’ve seen around Redwood, she’s a runner so that explains it I guess. That was until last night anyway, when my eyes landed on a girl who’s been floating around me for almost two years and yet I’ve never stopped to take in her beauty. Lois is my type down to a T, brunette curls that flow like smooth, milky chocolate down her back. Slim, creamy thighs that leadto the curve of her perfect hips and tapered waist. Her breasts were made to fit each of my palms, the swell of them making me instantly hungry to sink my teeth into my new favourite snack. Plus, that shy little mouse thing she’s got going on is a real turn on. I’m used to girls being confident around me, throwing themselves at me etc. What I'm not used to, is having to be the one who makes the moves and chases after what I want. But damn it I will, if I want something bad enough and I already know the craving for Lois Taylor is a little out of control. It’s ridiculous really. I’ve kissed the girl once and it wasn’t even a long kiss, but my god did it leave a mark on me and I'm not ashamed to admit that.

By the end of the third game of COD I'm about ready to throw a very heavy object of my choosing directly at Kyle’s head. He’s dragged us down this past hour, getting our cartoon guys shot multiple times and I’ve had about enough. I get up from the couch, determined to do something with my afternoon that doesn’t involve crushing my teammates skull because he can’t get to grips with some simple controls. We have an important hockey game against Preston tomorrow and I can already feel my eyelids drooping, even though I’ve been awake precisely three hours. I trudge up the stairs with my second coffee of the day in hand and plonk myself down into my desk chair. I lift the lid of my laptop and stare at the screensaver, tasting the hot liquid against my tongue. The photo that stares back at me is one that makes my heart strain to get out of my chest and run down the A5 towards Camden. My youngest sister stares back at me, her honey curls framing her chubby little face and accentuating the freckles that are sprinkled over her cheeks. She was about five in this photo, now she’s fifteen and has the mouth of a sailor…I have no idea where she gets that from. I should really go and visit my mum and siblings soon, the ones who are left anyway. Two of my three brothers — Joseph and Alex— left home the moment they turned eighteen and found jobs that were either on the other side of the country or in another country all together. My other brother, Ben, joined the army, following in my dad’s footsteps he said. Let’s all fucking pray he doesn’t follow Dad’s footsteps all the way to a prison cell of his own one day. It’s only Lacey and Florence left at home with my mum now and I know for a fact they will both be running for the hills the moment they’re handed the chance. I can’t say I blame them, my mum is the best mum she can possibly be given her circumstances. But unfortunately that doesn’t make up for all the shit me and my siblings have been through in our own lives.

A rhythmic tap against my bedroom door, followed by a chirpy, “Yoo-hoo! Nicky, you in there?”

I groan internally but haul the words up my dry throat. “Yeah, come in.”

Molly’s bright eyes appear through the crack in my open door, her face plastered with a wide grin. “Just wanted to check that I'm still good for a lift to the game tomorrow?”

Shit, I forgot about that.

“Erm, yeah sure. How’s Ky getting there?”

Molly rolls her blue eyes into the back of her head. “He says he’s getting there extra early tomorrow and that Coach is picking him up.”

“Coach is picking him up? Jesus, he must have been kissing some serious ass lately.”

“The only ass that man has been kissing is mine Andersen,” her eyes sparkle in that cheeky way they always do. “And plus, it saves me waking up early only to get dragged along to the arena at midday and sit there for five hours picking my fucking fingernails, waiting for the game to start.”

I grin. “I’ll take you Your Majesty, be ready for three o’clock. I won’t be awake before two so I definitely won’t be getting to the arena before three thirty.”

She pushes open my bedroom door a little more, giving me a twirl like she’s four years old, showing off her new outfit. I see my name and number on the back of the Redwood hockey jersey she’s sporting. I’m surprised she still has that thing after we…you know.

I breathe a laugh, my arms coming to rest behind my head. “Are you ever planning on wearing your own boyfriend’s jersey Crawford? I know you’re obsessed with me after the best night of your life last year, but I think it’s time to move on.”

Molly scoffs and grants me another dramatic eye roll. “You wish fuck boy, I only wear this to wind Kyle up.”

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